Bible Quotation for today/Taming
the TongueJames 03/01-12: "Not many of you should become teachers, my fellow
believers, because you know that we who teach will be judged more strictly.
We all stumble in many ways. Anyone who is never at fault in what they say is
perfect, able to keep their whole body in check. When we put bits into the
mouths of horses to make them obey us, we can turn the whole animal. Or
take ships as an example. Although they are so large and are driven by strong
winds, they are steered by a very small rudder wherever the pilot wants to go.
Likewise, the tongue is a small part of the body, but it makes great boasts.
Consider what a great forest is set on fire by a small spark. The tongue
also is a fire, a world of evil among the parts of the body. It corrupts the
whole body, sets the whole course of one’s life on fire, and is itself set on
fire by hell. All kinds of animals, birds, reptiles and sea creatures are being
tamed and have been tamed by mankind, but no human being can tame the
tongue. It is a restless evil, full of deadly poison. With the tongue we praise
our Lord and Father, and with it we curse human beings, who have been made in
God’s likeness. Out of the same mouth come praise and cursing. My brothers and
sisters, this should not be. Can both fresh water and salt water flow from the
same spring? My brothers and sisters, can a fig tree bear olives, or a
grapevine bear figs? Neither can a salt spring produce fresh water.

Latest analysis,
editorials from miscellaneous sources published on October 06, 07/14

Nusra rejects Lebanon offer to treat
fighter for hostagesThe Daily Star/BEIRUT: Al-Qaeda's Syria affiliate the Nusra Front
rejected an offer to treat one of its fighters at a hospital inside Lebanon in
exchange for the release of three Lebanese captives being held by the jihadists,
a commander said Monday. In comments to Anadulo News Agency, a Nusra commander
said the group had asked General Security chief Maj. Gen. Abbas Ibrahim via a
mediator to treat a fighter wounded during Sunday's fierce border clashes with
Hezbollah in a Lebanese hospital. “We tried to move him to Arsal but the
Lebanese Army checkpoint prevented us. We communicated with Abbas Ibrahim who
demanded the release of three captive soldiers so he would allow us to transfer
[the fighter] to Arsal for treatment,” the unnamed commander told the Turkish
agency. “We rejected that and informed him that we did not want to launch a
battle against them, but his answer was that he would prevent us from
transferring any wounded.” Nusra and ISIS are holding at least 21 Lebanese
soldiers and policemen who were taken hostage during a five-day battle in August
between the jihadists and the Army. The Nusra commander also spoke about the
clashes with Hezbollah near the Lebanese border village of Brital Sunday, saying
the group attacked Hezbollah posts as a preemptive strike. The commander said
the group had received information that Hezbollah was beefing up several
positions and had been preparing an attack in coordination with the Lebanese and
Syrian armies. “We prepared ourselves and as soon as knew Hezbollah fighters
were infiltrating Nahleh's outskirts, we attacked them and ambushed them,” he
said. Hezbollah sources told The Daily Star Sunday that the Nusra Front attacked
two posts on the border with Syria near the Lebanese villages of Brital and
Nahleh. At least eight Hezbollah fighters and 14 militants were killed in the
clashes that ensued. He denied Hezbollah had taken any Nusra fighter captive as
claimed by the group and said only one fighter was killed in the clashes.
“What happened yesterday was a warning message to Hezbollah ... If we wanted to
continue the battle, we could have attacked Brital.” “We found American-made
weapons still in their wrapping including a rocket launcher. Where did the party
of Iran get such weapons from?”The commander also gave contradicting comments
about where the clashes took place, while Hezbollah maintained that the battle
erupted inside Syria, on the edge of Lebanon's border. At one point, the
commander said the clashes took place on the outskirts of Nahleh and Brital.
Later in the interview, the man said Nusra fighters did not infiltrate Lebanese
territory.
“But there was a military position for Hezbollah, which we overran, and then we
withdrew.” Meanwhile, Nusra Front released what it claimed was footage from the
battle with Hezbollah, showing jihadists firing mortar rounds at Hezbollah
positions. The video also shows Nusra fighters in military gear heading towards
the post with a man's voice occassionaly yelling out "God is great."The camera
man later films a makeshift shelter he claimed belonged to Hezbollah.

Calm returns to border after
Hezbollah-Nusra fighting killed 22Nidal al-Solh| The Daily Star/Oct. 06, 2014
BAALBEK, Lebanon: Calm returned to Lebanon's eastern border Monday following
fierce fighting between Hezbollah and Nusra Front extremists that left nearly
two dozen combatants killed, according to security sources. Hezbollah
acknowledged the deaths of eight fighters and said it would hold funeral
processions later Monday for at least two that were killed in the Bekaa Valley
town of Labweh. Security sources said at least 20 Hezbollah fighters were
wounded in the clashes that broke out Sunday evening outside the village of
Brital. They were taken to hospitals in Baalbek, particularly the Hezbollah-run
Dar al-Hikmeh, the sources told The Daily Star. They said 14 Nusra Front
jihadists were killed in the clashes that ebbed around 3 a.m. Monday.
Hezbollah captured five Nusra militants, the sources said. They said Hezbollah
fighters repelled Nusra Front attacks on the party’s two main posts – Ain al-Saaa
and Mihfara – on the farthest edge of Brital Sunday afternoon. Later in the
evening, Hezbollah also attacked Nusra hideouts on the outermost edge of Brital.
A source from Hezbollah told The Daily Star that militants had briefly taken
over one of the posts but the party swiftly regained control of the site. "All
the fighting is taking place inside Syrian territories as militants are seeking
to gain a foothold in Qalamoun, where their presence is weak," the source said.
"They have been launching intermittent attacks." The Nusra Front, however,
claimed that it had been attacked by Hezbollah. The group tweeted Monday morning
that jihadists had repulsed a Hezbollah attack on the outskirts of Nahleh, a
village northeast of Baalbek, killing and wounding dozens of fighters from the
"resistance and rejectionist party."The rebels have been caught in the no-man’s
land between the two countries since the Syrian regime and Hezbollah regained
the majority of Syria’s Qalamoun region earlier this year. The porous border
region had served as a major supply line for the Syrian rebels over the more
than three and a half year old civil war, but the rebels increasingly came into
conflict with the Lebanese Army after being pushed out of Qalamoun. Hezbollah’s
involvement in the Syrian civil war alongside President Bashar Assad’s forces
has been cited by the rebels as their justification for their attacks on
Lebanon, which have grown over the last year, culminating in the fierce August
battles in Arsal that ended with 19 soldiers dead and more than 30 troops and
policemen being taken hostage by the Nusra Front and ISIS.

Report: Militants Change Conditions to
Release of Arsal Captives Naharnet /The captors of the soldiers and policemen abducted from
the northeastern region of Arsal in August have changed their conditions to
release the hostages, reported the Kuwaiti daily al-Anba on Monday. Sources
monitoring the situation told the daily that the Islamist militants are no
longer demanding the release of fellow Islamists from Roumieh prison as a
condition for freeing the captives. They have also stopped demanding that the
Lebanese armed forces cease their security measures around Syrian refugee
encampments in the area. They have instead urged authorities against cutting the
passages leading to Arsal and its outskirts, calling for ensuring the
establishment of a humanitarian corridor for the gunmen to visit their families
in Arsal. They also called against transferring Syrian encampments outside of
the town and against blocking passages of vital needs for the outskirts. The
sources said that the new conditions were a response to Army Commander General
Jean Qahwaji's recent statements that the advent of winter favors the Lebanese
security forces' attempts to pressure the gunmen to release the captives. The
soldiers and policemen were abducted by Islamist gunmen in August in the wake of
clashes with the army in Arsal. Three of the captives have since been executed,
a few were released, while the rest remain held by al-Nusra Front and Islamic
State gunmen from Syria. The families of the hostages have staged demonstrations
and blocked roads throughout Lebanon in an attempt to pressure the government to
exert more efforts to release them.

Security Forces Determined to Detain
Mawlawi, Mansour after Locating their Whereabouts Naharnet /Security forces located the whereabouts of notorious
Tripoli militants Shadi al-Mawlawi and Osama Mansour, media reports said on
Monday. According to the pan-Arab daily al-Hayat, security forces are determined
to detain the two fugitives, who took the Sunni Bab al-Tabbaneh neighborhood of
the northern city of Tripoli as their hideout. The report said that security
apparatuses will reactivate a security plan previously implemented in the
northern city. Sources told al-Hayat that Mansour and al-Mawlawi head an armed
group in Bab al-Tabbaneh. The armed group, according to the sources, is
comprised of sympathizers that have previously engaged in battles in neighboring
Syria along with the armed groups. The sources pointed out that the two
fugitives are constantly inciting against the Lebanese army and the Internal
Security Forces on claims of oppressing Sunnis who cannot defend themselves
against Hizbullah. They are also inciting against the city's lawmakers and
ministers for “abandoning them.”The newspaper said that around 30 to 40 gunmen
deploy nightly at the entrances of Bab al-Tabbaneh, fearing that security forces
could surprise them with raids. On Thursday, State Commissioner to the Military
Court Judge Saqr Saqr charged a detainee and 10 fugitives, including al-Mawlawi
and Mansour, with “belonging to an armed terrorist group in order to stage
terrorist acts, and holing up at a Tripoli mosque with the aim of preparing
bombs and explosive devices to target Lebanese army troops in the area.” The
eleven were referred to First Military Examining Magistrate Riad Abu Ghida.
Military Examining Magistrate Nabil Wehbe also issued an indictment in the case
of the August 3 bomb explosion that killed Tripoli resident Issam al-Shaar in
the al-Jinan area. Mawlawi and Mansour were also among those charged in the
case.
On September 12, Mansour, who leads an Islamist militia in Bab al-Tabbaneh,
denied reports that his group had pledged allegiance to the Islamic State or al-Nusra
Front. The 27-year-old militant had been wanted on dozens of arrest warrants and
was recently apprehended in the Bekaa before being eventually released.
Mansour's 20-member group had recently “occupied” the Omar bin Massoud Mosque in
Bab al-Tabbaneh and that he started “playing a bigger role” in the city with the
beginning of the Arsal battle in the Bekaa in early August. Mansour and his
group have however denied “occupying” the mosque, noting that they are present
there because they are residents of the neighborhood.

Geagea: Govt. Must Issue Decision
Binding Hizbullah to Withdraw Fighters from Syria
Naharnet /Lebanese Forces leader Samir Geagea noted on Monday that the attack
launched by gunmen from Syria against Hizbullah positions in the eastern region
of Brital demonstrates the need for the government to take the necessary action
to guarantee the safety of Lebanese territories. He told the Central News
Agency: “The government should take a binding decision to force Hizbullah to
withdraw from Syria.”“It should then provide the Lebanese army with the
necessary support to completely control the Lebanese-Syrian border in accordance
to United Nations Security Council resolution 1701,” he suggested. Hizbullah's
withdrawal from Syria will also ensure the release of soldiers and policemen
abducted by extremists in August from the northeastern border town of Arsal.
“The government's avoidance of addressing the issue of Hizbullah's involvement
in Syria demonstrates that it is shying away from its responsibility as the
party's meddling in the neighboring country will lead all the Lebanese,
especially the Shiites, towards more crises, which we can do without,” Geagea
remarked. Later on Monday, the March 14 General Secretariat emphasized its
commitment that the Lebanese government alone have the sole authority in
defending Lebanon. It rejected Hizbullah's defending of the Lebanese border due
to its involvement in the fighting in Syria and “because such a development will
pave the way for illegitimate groups to take up arms,” it explained. “Placing
the border under the authority of legitimate Lebanese and international powers
will avoid us further political embarrassments and ensure the stability of the
Bekaa region similar to that witnessed in the South since 2006,” it noted.
Hizbullah said on Sunday that at least five of its fighters were killed along
with "dozens" of gunmen in clashes that erupted in the town of Nabi Sbat in
eastern Lebanon near the border with Syria. Lebanon's border with Syria is not
officially defined and much of it is porous and unpatrolled, with local
residents, smugglers and others moving freely across it. Hizbullah maintains
several military posts along inaccessible parts of the border, and it rarely
gives official details on clashes with jihadists or other fighters.

11 Hizbullah Fighters Killed During
Clashes in Outskirts of Brital, Attack Was on 10 of Its Positions Agencies /06.10.14/Hizbullah repulsed on Sunday an attack by al-Nusra
Front on ten of its positions and they didnt lose any of their positions but Ain
Saat for more than an hour. Hizbullah managed to thwart the attack on its other
positions. Eight of its fighters were killed, while al-Nusra Front stated that
they attacked a position and killed eleven fighters for Hizbullah. Al-Nusra
front posted a video Monday afternoon showing pictures of its fighters storming
positions for Hizbullah while naming it "The battle of revenge for our refugee
brothers whose tents were burned in Arsal.”Al-Nusra was referring to the burning
of the refugee camps in Arsal two weeks ago during raids by the army to arrest
suspects. The army assured it opened fire on the suspects for setting the tents
in the camp on fire, while al-Nusra insists it was the army who put the fire on.
The Video begins with pictures of gunmen in cars in the outskirts then gunmen
walking to “Iran's party,” as they said. The video continued to show militants
fighting and screaming “Allahu Akbar.” Then the it ends with pictures of Brital
and saying that “The fighters are in the outskirts.” LBCI stated on Monday
afternoon that: “What had happened is a comprehensive attack on 10 Hizbullah
positions in the outskirts from Ain Saat to Younine, that lasted for almost five
hours.”
“The clashes were on two axes the first in Brital – Hamme and the second in
Younine – Nahle," it added. LBCI quoted a Hizbullah source as saying: “The
attack did not succeed and its positions along the roads are under its
control.”“Various types of weapons were used in the process, during which
Hizbullah fired artillery on all of the gunmen's positions,” it added. LBCI
revealed that the hills where they clashed had rugged areas. The battle
was very violent and the reinforcements from Brital to Hamme took more than an
hour to recover Ain Saat position. “The snipers froma l-Nusra Front are strongly
active from hill to hill and any moving target is in danger,” LBCI quotied
Hizbullah fighters at Ain Saat position as saying. Al-Nusra Front did not report
anything until Monday morning.
It wrote on its Twitter: "Your brothers and fighters Aassal al-Ward attacked a
position for Hiz Alat al-Irani (Hizbullah) in the outskirts of Brital and killed
more than 11 of them and seized weapons.”It also published pictures of dead men
covered with blood and claimed they were Hizbullah fighters. Sources close to
Hizbullah stated: "Martyrs have ascended while doing their sacred line of duty
in the outskirts of Brital.”“The martyrs are: Hamza Aaqsa, Mohammed Abdo Rabah,
Mohammed Qasim al-Qalamuni, Fouad Murtada, Maher Zaayter, Ahmed Hussein Saleh,
Nizar Tarraf, Ammar Assaf,” it added. According to al-Manar television,
Hizbullah killed dozens of militants and wounded others in Ain al-Saat and was
able to take them out of the eastern mountain range. A suicide car bomber killed
on 20 September three people at a checkpoint manned by Hizbullah in the district
of Baalbek that lies in eastern Lebanon, the state-run National News Agency
reported. During the last few months several confrontations took place in the
outskirts of Brital-Baalbek between Hizbullah and groups of gunmen from Syria.
Hizbullah exists in several military points in the outskirts on the border, that
are hard to reach.

Families of Arsal Captives Block Roads
to Press State to Negotiate their Release
Naharnet /The families of the soldiers and policemen abducted from the Arsal
region briefly blocked on Monday the Tarshish-Zahleh road in an attempt to
pressure the government to exert more efforts to release their loved ones. They
also blocked the Dahr al-Baydar road. The roads were also closed off against
humanitarian cases, reported various media outlets. The families placed sand
barriers on the Dahr al-Baydar road to ensure that no vehicles crossed the area.
They later blocked the both lanes of the al-Qalamoun highway, said the Traffic
Management Center. All roads have since been reopened. Earlier, one of the
relatives declared to LBCI television: “The government has been adopting a lax
approach in the case.”
“The Qatari mediator abandoned the case because the government has not been
receptive of his efforts,” he said. Asked if any state official has been
contacting the families, he responded: “We hail the efforts of Health Minister
Wael Abou Faour, who has been the most proactive in the file.” He also lamented
the Free Patriotic Movement's stance that opposes carrying out negotiations with
the captors. “Had the government had any dignity, it would stage negotiations,”
said another one of the relatives. She pleaded to the al-Nusra Front to release
one of the captives “as a goodwill gesture in order to determine the gunmen's
true intentions.” The soldiers and policemen were abducted by Islamist gunmen in
August in the wake of clashes with the army in northeastern town of Arsal.
Three of the captives have since been executed, a few were released, while the
rest remain held by al-Nusra Front and Islamic State gunmen from Syria. The
families of the hostages have staged demonstrations and blocked roads throughout
Lebanon to pressure government to exert more efforts to release them. A Qatari
mediator was carrying out negotiations to release the hostages, but media
reports said Sunday that he withdrew from the case after the talks stalled. The
gunmen have reportedly been demanding the release of Islamists held in Roumieh
Prison and withdrawal of Hizbullah fighters from Syria in exchange for freeing
the Lebanese hostages.

Al-Kataeb Calls for a 'Major Operation' to Close The
Eastern Border, Protect It
Naharnet/Al-Kataeb party called for the implementation of a "major operation" on
Monday to close the border between Lebanon and Syria after the violent clashes
between Hizbullah and al-Nusra Front.
It also called for the "Cessation of the parallel issues that make the
presidential election a marginal issue." Al-Kataeb stated after the political
bureau meeting after on Monday that: “The path of events indicates unexpected
risks , the expansion bombardment and confrontation on the eastern mountain
range with Syria might be one of its facets, and this would put the entire
country in danger.”
Clashes took place on Sunday between gunmen from al-Nusra Front, which came from
Assal al-Ward in Syria to the outskirts of Hamme and Brital, and Hizbullah
fighters.Al-Kataeb called for: "National circumvent around the army and immunize
it with national unity.”
It also called for: "The implementation of a major operation to close the border
and protect it, and the government should make the necessary contacts with
international authorities to ensure the help of Resolution 1701 and the
involvement of the international force in the process of adjusting the Lebanese
border.”Al-Kataeb believes that: "The interest of all is to stop everything that
offends the Constitution, the Charter and the national partnership, and to elect
a president without further marginalization of the first institution."
And the issue of the kidnapped soldiers is an important issue for the government
said al-Kataeb, rejecting the resort to anything that might disrupt public life
in the country in this stage where Lebanon is suffering from security and
economic risks.

20 Jihadists Dead in Bid to Enter Syria's Kobane Overnight
Naharnet/At least 20 jihadists from the Islamic State group were killed on
Sunday night in a failed bid to enter the embattled Syrian border town of Kobane,
a monitor said. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the jihadists were
killed after entering an eastern neighborhood of the town and coming under
attack by Kurdish fighters from the People's Protection Units. Kurdish militia
fought off a fresh assault by the Islamic State group on a key Syrian town early
Monday, after one desperate woman defender carried out a suicide attack against
the jihadists. IS militants attempted to storm the town of Kobane on the Turkish
border from both east and west of a strategic hill to the south, but Kurdish
fighters repulsed the attack, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.
A Syrian Kurdish official inside Kobane said the town had come under heavy
bombardment by the jihadists and there had been fierce clashes as the Kurdish
fighters fought off the assault. IS fighters seized part of Mishtenur Hill,
which overlooks Kobane, late on Saturday, but U.S.-led air strikes slowed their
advance. The Syrian Kurdish official said IS fighters were just one kilometer
(less than a mile) from the town and that air strikes alone were not enough to
stop them. Idris Nahsen complained there was no coordination between coalition
commanders and Kurdish fighters on the ground. In a sign of the Kurdish
defenders' mounting desperation, a female suicide bomber blew herself up at an
IS position east of Kobane on Sunday, the Observatory said. It was the first
reported instance of a female Kurdish fighter employing a tactic often used by
the jihadists, said the Britain-based watchdog, which has a wide network of
sources inside Syria. The Kurdish official confirmed the suicide bombing but was
non-committal about whether there would be more.
"I don't know. It is related to the situation. We don't have this strategy,"
Nahsen said. Sunday's fighting around Kobane -- also known as Ain al-Arab --
killed at least 19 Kurdish fighters and 27 IS jihadists, the Observatory said.
Under assault by IS for nearly three weeks, the town has become a crucial
battleground in the international fight against the jihadists, who sparked
further outrage at the weekend with the release of a video showing the beheading
of Briton Alan Henning.
The video -- the latest in a series of on-camera beheadings of Western hostages
-- included a threat to another hostage, U.S. aid worker Peter Kassig.
Kassig's parents have issued a video plea for their son's release, urging his
captors to show mercy towards the 26-year-old former U.S. soldier who is a
Muslim convert. His parents have also revealed that Kassig wrote them a letter
in June expressing his fears of death and concern for his family. "I am
obviously pretty scared to die but the hardest part is not knowing, wondering,
hoping and wondering if I should even hope at all. I am very sad all this has
happened and for what all of you back home are going through," Kassig wrote in
the letter.
IS began its advance on Kobane on September 16, seeking to cement its grip over
a long stretch of the Syria-Turkey border. The offensive prompted a mass exodus
from the town and surrounding countryside, with some 186,000 people fleeing into
Turkey. One mortar round hit a house on Turkish territory just a few kilometers
(miles) from Kobane on Sunday, wounding five people, medical sources said. The
source of the fire was unclear, but residents of two small border villages were
ordered evacuated as a precaution.
The Turkish parliament last week authorized the government to join the campaign,
but so far no plans for military action have been announced, to the dismay of
Turkey's own large Kurdish minority. Extremist Sunni Muslim group IS has seized
large parts of Syria and Iraq, declaring a "caliphate" in June and imposing its
harsh interpretation of Islamic law. The group has been accused of carrying out
widespread atrocities including mass executions, abductions, torture and forcing
women into slavery. It has also released videos of the on-camera beheadings of
two U.S. journalists, a British aid worker and on Friday of Henning, a
47-year-old British volunteer driver who went to Syria with a Muslim charity.
After first launching strikes against IS in Iraq in August, Washington has built
a coalition of allies to wage an air campaign against the group.
In Iraq, the pace of the coalition air campaign against IS picked up on Sunday
with the first strike by Belgium and maiden combat sorties by Australia and The
Netherlands. Britain, France and Denmark have also committed aircraft to the
campaign against IS in Iraq, where a fightback by Kurdish forces in the north
has made slow progress while federal troops have come under renewed assault by
the jihadists west of Baghdad. In Syria, Washington relies on the support of
five Arab allies -- Bahrain, Jordan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab
Emirates.Agence France Presse

Hezbollah MP boasts victory over Nusra Front
The Daily Star
BEIRUT: Hezbollah saved Lebanon from a plot by Islamist gunmen to expand their
territory, a party official said Monday, boasting that the group was capable of
repelling imminent attacks similar to Sunday's border violence.
Meanwhile, March 14 officials blamed Hezbollah for the clashes that erupted near
the Lebanese border village of Brital Sunday, calling for the deployment of an
international peacekeeping force along the porous border with Syria to protect
the country. “The resistance is alert day and night and foiled a plan by takfiri
groups to attack our villages and towns in the Bekaa,” Loyalty to the Resistance
MP Hasan Fadlallah said during a ceremony in Tibnin, south Lebanon.
“The resistance has proven once again that it is the nation's armor and it is
always ready to defeat any attackers who attempt to attack our northern and
southern borders.” Hezbollah sources told The Daily Star Sunday that the Nusra
Front attacked two posts on the border with Syria near Lebanese villages. At
least eight Hezbollah fighters and 14 militants were killed in the fierce
clashes that ensued.
Fadlallah saw the assult on Hezbollah's posts as a part of a series of attacks
launched by takfiri groups against military and civilian targets in country,
including car bombings and the recent abduction of soldiers and policemen.
“The purpose is to serve a blow to the pillars of the state and divide the
country geographically so that they could establish their emirate in Lebanon,”
the lawmaker said. “The resistance jihadists are stationed in the valleys, on
the hills and between the rocks. They do not blink when danger lurks. Wherever
this resistance is, the takfiri groups will not achieve their goals.”
Describing the weekend attacks as a “desperate move” by Islamist gunmen to
secure a passage to Lebanon, the Hezbollah official reaffirmed that the party’s
tripartite defense formula was critical to protect Lebanon.
“If it wasn't for this resistance, complementing the Army and citizens embracing
the resistance’s choices, the takfiri groups would have been able to move the
battle to Lebanon,” he said, referring to Hezbollah’s contested formula of the
“Army, the people, and the resistance.”
“Despite such failed attacks, stability and calm will prevail contrary to our
neighbors," he added, referring to jihadist gains in Syria and Iraq.
This is "all thanks to the resistance's historic decision to confront the
takfiri groups at the doorstep of Lebanon.”But Hezbollah’s rivals in the March
14 coalition had a different take on the recent attack. Lebanese Forces leader
Samir Geagea said Nusra's penetration of Lebanese border towns should prompt the
government to force Hezbollah to pull out of Syria.
“The attack by the militants on the outskirts of Brital and Nabi Sebat
demonstrated once again the need for the Lebanese government to take a decision
to force Hezbollah to withdraw from Syria if the government is serious in
securing the safety of Lebanese territory,” Geagea told the Central News Agency.
Geagea reiterated a long-standing demand by the March 14 coalition to expand the
mandate of the U.N. Interim Force in Lebanon to cover the porous border between
Lebanon and Syria. “The government should also provide support for the Army in
line with the U.N. Security Council Resolution 1701 to control the
Lebanese-Syrian border and to connect the operation room of the Army with that
of the international coalition to have the needed equipment to defend the
border,” he said. The party chief was referring to the U.S.-led alliance
targeting ISIS positions in Iraq and Syria to destroy the group, which joined
forces with the Nusra Front to briefly take over Lebanon's northeast border town
of Arsal in August before retreating to the outskirts.
The jihadist groups took more than 30 Lebanese soldiers and policemen as
hostages when they withdrew from the town. “Hezbollah's withdrawal from Syria
not only secures the border but also secures the release of the captives,” he
said, referring to the remaining 21 hostages. Nusra has released seven of its
captives and killed one, while ISIS has beheaded two. Geagea criticized the
government for “running away” from the issue of Hezbollah’s presence in Syria,
saying: “Hezbollah's continued fight there will bring the Lebanese, particularly
the Shiites, more crises and tragedies.” The March 14 secretariat also repeated
calls for the Lebanese government to deploy peacekeeping forces along the border
with Syria.
“In light of recent incidents along the Lebanese border ... March 14 supports
the exclusivity of the state in defending Lebanon by deploying the Army along
the Syrian border with the support of international troops as stipulated by U.N.
Security Council Resolution 1701,” the secretariat said in a statement.
“Placing the border under international and Lebanese legitimacy prevents
political embarrassments and secures stability for the Bekaa similar to the
south in 2006."
The secretariat rejected Hezbollah’s “defense of the border,” saying such an
approach paved the way for other groups to take up arms “under the excuse of
equality.”

Two Rockets from Eastern Lebanon Land
in Hermel Naharnet /Several rockets targeted on Monday the Bekaa town of
Hermel, the state-run National News Agency reported. According to NNA, two
rockets fired from Lebanon’s Eastern Mountain range, on the Lebanese-Syrian
border, landed on the residential area in Hermel. However, security sources
denied in comments to LBCI the report. Syria-based rebel groups usually claim
responsibility for such attacks, arguing that they come in retaliation to
Hizbullah's military intervention in Syria. Hizbullah said on Sunday that at
least five of its fighters were killed along with "dozens" of gunmen in clashes
that erupted in the town of Nabi Sbat in eastern Lebanon near the border with
Syria. Lebanon's border with Syria is not officia

Retired soldier shot and wounded in north LebanonThe Daily Star/TRIPOLI, Lebanon: An unknown assailant shot and
wounded a retired Lebanese Army soldier Monday in the northern city of Tripoli,
security sources said. The sources said Khaled al-Khaled had just returned home
at around 4 a.m. when the attacker fired a single shot at him from a garage
inside a building on Ibn Sina Street in the Tripoli neighborhood of Qibbeh. The
bullet pierced Khaled’s chest, the sources told The Daily Star, adding that the
retired officer was taken to the local Nini hospital for treatment.
lly defined and much of it is porous and unpatrolled, with local residents,
smugglers and others moving freely across it. Hizbullah maintains several
military posts along inaccessible parts of the border, and it rarely gives
official details on clashes with jihadists or other fighters.

How Obama’s Arab Spring created the
Islamic State
By: Raymond Ibrahim
10/6/2014/Human Events
Over a decade ago, the U.S. conquered Iraq; its military and intelligence were
on the ground for years with autonomy. In other words, U.S. influence and
authority was more pronounced in Iraq than probably any other Muslim country in
the world. And yet it is in this one Muslim nation, where the U.S. had most
authority, where U.S. blood and treasure were spent, that the absolute worst
Islamic terrorist group—the Islamic State—was born.
Coincidence?
Or is this too related to the great “Arab Spring” failures of the Obama
administration? Consider: Obama was repeatedly warned that withdrawing U.S.
troops from Iraq would lead to something exactly like the Islamic State—with all
the atrocities that have become synonymous with that name.
Indeed, arguing against early troop withdrawal, Obama’s predecessor, George W.
Bush, once made the following now prophetic remarks:
To begin withdrawing before our commanders tell us we are ready would be
dangerous for Iraq, for the region and for the United States.
It would mean surrendering the future of Iraq to Al Qaeda.
It would mean that we’d be risking mass killings on a horrific scale.
It would mean we allow the terrorists to establish a safe haven in Iraq to
replace the one they lost in Afghanistan.
It would mean we’d be increasing the probability that American troops would have
to return at some later date to confront an enemy that is even more dangerous.
The point here is not to “side” with Bush—the idea of transporting “democracy”
to an Islamic country was ill-conceived from the start—but rather to demonstrate
that Obama was thoroughly warned what troop withdrawal would lead to: the
Islamic State. The same U.S. military and intelligence sources that allowed Bush
to make that prescient statement also shared their assessments with Obama.
Yet Obama withdrew anyway. In December 2011, Obama declared the Iraq war a
success and pulled out American troops. nd, to the eyes of most Americans,
things were relatively quiet—until, of course, the world heard that a
head-chopping, infidel-crucifying, mass-murdering “caliphate” had “suddenly”
arisen.
Was Iraq also part of the euphoria of the Obama-endorsed “Arab Spring”?
Recall that final troop withdrawal from Iraq occurred at the height of the Arab
Spring when the Obama administration was simultaneously betraying key U.S.
allies in the Islamic world such as Egypt’s Hosni Mubarak.
If the U.S. was not going to stand by its former “secular strongmen,” but
instead was willing to hold hands with their traditional enemies, the Muslim
Brotherhood and other Islamists, why should it have supported Iraq’s Nouri
Maliki?
After all, the narrative adopted by the Obama administration was that the Arab
people were breaking the bonds of authoritarianism, and the U.S. administration
was supporting their efforts, most notably by turning its back on longtime
allies in the name of “democracy.”
And surely Maliki was seen as the greatest of all “U.S. puppets,” a divisive
figure that stood in the way of the Sunni Spring?
Despite the narrative that Maliki was for complete troop withdrawal, “it’s
well-established that behind closed doors, he [Maliki] was interested in a
substantial U.S. presence.” Indeed, theNew York Times reported that Joe Biden
had said that “Maliki wants us to stick around because he does not see a future
in Iraq otherwise.”
More specifically, in a 2012 debate with Mitt Romney, Obama decried the presence
of any American forces in Iraq (video here), adding that
You’ve got to be clear, both to our allies and our enemies, about where you
stand and what you mean. Now, you [Romney] just gave a speech a few weeks ago in
which you said we should still have troops in Iraq. That is not a recipe for
making sure that we are taking advantage of the opportunities and meeting the
challenges of the Middle East.
What do Obama’s assertions mean?
Was Obama being “clear, both to our allies”—the Sunni Islamists whom he allied
with during the Arab Spring—“and our enemies”—the Arab autocrats who stood in
their way?
Was Obama showing both groups “where you [U.S. president] stand and what you
mean”?
Was troop withdrawal Obama’s way of “taking advantage of the
opportunities”—riding the Arab Spring wave—“and meeting the challenges of the
Middle East”—winning Muslim hearts and minds by abandoning autocrats?
Here, then, is another perspective on the rise of the Sunni Islamic State in
Iraq—one closely connected to the many other Arab Spring failures of the Obama
administration

Friday night’s ISIS beheading video documented the murder
of British aid worker Alan Henning, father of two teenage children, whose
“crime” was volunteering to drive a truck full of food and medical supplies to
refugees from the Syrian civil war. The UK Daily Mail has the transcript of the
video, which starred the English-speaking masked terrorist known as “Jihad
John”:
Alan Henning: ‘I am Alan Henning. Because of our parliament’s decision to attack
the Islamic state I as a member of the British public will now pay the price for
that decision.’
Jihadi John: ‘The blood of David Haines was on your hands Cameron, Alan Henning
will also be slaughtered but his blood is on the hands of the British
parliament.’
Jihadi John then steps forward to cut Mr Henning’s throat and his body is shown
lying on the floor.
Peter Kassig is then shown kneeling next to Jihadi John.
Jihadi John: ‘Obama you have started your aerial bombardment in Sham (Syria)
which keeps on striking our people, so it’s only right we continue to strike the
necks of your people.’
The Daily Mail reports that Henning’s family is furious with the British
government, which they say was aware of their citizen’s capture for “months and
months,” but did not mount a rescue effort. Perhaps motivated by growing public
sentiment along these lines, Prime Minister David Cameron called all of the
British intelligence services together for a meeting in which he instructed them
to prioritize locating and capturing or killing Jihad John and his crew.
They’ll get a brief respite before any more Britons are threatened, because the
next designated beheading victim, mentioned in the transcript of the video
above, is Peter Kassig, an American aid worker who was also taken prisoner while
delivering relief supplies to victims of the Syrian civil war. Fox News reports
that Kassig’s family has decided to publicly release a letter he sent them from
captivity:
Ed and Paula Kassig said in a statement Sunday that they had been told by a
former hostage that their son Peter had voluntarily converted to Islam sometime
between October and December of last year when he shared a cell with a Syrian
Muslim. They said that their son “took Islam’s practices seriously, including
praying the five daily prayers and taking on the name Abdul-Rahman.”
The Kassigs also released a letter written by their 26-year-old son in which he
thanked them for their strength and commitment and appeared to try to prepare
them for his death.
“I am obviously pretty scared to die but the hardest part is not knowing,
wondering, hoping, and wondering if I should even hope at all,” Kassig said in
the letter, according to his parents. “I am very sad that all this has happened
and for what all of you back home are going through. If I do die, I figure that
at least you and I can seek refuge and comfort in knowing that I went out as a
result of trying to alleviate suffering and helping those in need.”
These developments must be very confusing to Afsun Qureshi, who in August
published an article at Canada’s National Post advising kidnap victims to recite
the Muslim prayer of submission to Allah, known as the shahadah, to avoid
beheading. It’s not being widely reported in American media, but the Daily Mail
says Kassig took the name “Abdul Rahman” when he converted. That didn’t do him
much good, either. ISIS didn’t even use that name when they indicated he would
be their net victim.
The letter continues: “In terms of my faith, I pray every day and I am not angry
about my situation in that sense. I am in a dogmatically complicated situation
here, but I am at peace with my belief.”
The Kassigs say the complication appears to arise from his conversion but that
they see this “as part our son’s long spiritual journey.”
There shouldn’t be anything “dogmatically complicated” about this situation at
all, as President Barack Obama has clearly stated the Islamic State is not
Islamic in any way, shape, or form. Was no one paying attention when he said
that?
Like so many of ISIS’ captives, Kassig is a dedicated humanitarian who made a
tremendous effort to help civilians swept up in the Syrian bloodshed. ISIS
evidently had a field day grabbing these aid workers, or purchasing them from
more “moderate” elements of the Syrian resistance.
According to the family, Kassig formed the aid organization Special Emergency
Response and Assistance, or SERA, in Turkey to provide aid and assistance to
Syrian refugees. He began delivering food and medical supplies to Syrian refugee
camps in 2012 and is also a trained medical assistant who provided trauma care
to injured Syrian civilians and helped train 150 civilians in providing medical
aid.
In Saturday’s video statement, Ed Kassig said his son had grown “to love and
admire” the Syrian people, after growing up in an Indianapolis family with a
long history of humanitarian work and teaching.
“Our son was living his life according to that same humanitarian call when he
was taken captive,” Ed, a teacher himself, said.
Kassig served in the Army from June 2006 and September 2007. He was a member of
the 75th Ranger regiment and served four months in Iraq in 2007 before being
medically discharged at the rank of private first class in September of that
year.
He’s only 26 years old, and he’s already served as an Army ranger and formed his
own humanitarian aid group. One such person is worth the life of every miserable
bag of slime marching under the black banner. The SERA group reportedly
suspended its humanitarian efforts while working to secure its founder’s
release, so there’s another load of human misery that can be laid at the feet of
ISIS.
The New York Daily News says that Kassig’s kidnappers instructed his family to
remain quiet about his capture as a condition of negotiating for his release.
They’re still pleading for his life to be spared, but his appearance in the
latest jihadi snuff film shows that respecting the conditions set forth by the
terror state didn’t get them anywhere.
TheNYDN has more details of Kassig’s background, and his decision to form a
Syrian aid group. He studied at Butler University for a while after his medical
discharge from the Army, was briefly married, and began looking for a higher
purpose in life while battling depression after his divorce:
“I needed to make a drastic decision,” he said. “It was a huge identity thing;
it was time to reevaluate. I needed a game-changer.”
He decided to volunteer in a Palestinian refugee camp in South Beirut and a
hospital in Lebanon.
“We each get one life and that’s it,” the dedicated war vet said. “We got one
shot at this and we don’t get any do-overs, and for me, it was time to put up or
shut up. The way I saw it, I didn’t have a choice. This is what I was put here
to do. I guess I am just a hopeless romantic, and I am an idealist, and I
believe in hopeless causes.”
In February 2013, Kassig told Syria Deeply that his aid group SERA needed more
funds to keep their relief efforts going.
And he spoke of why he gave aid instead of continuing to pick up a gun.
“Sometimes rebels want to know if I will help train people or if I will join the
fight. I always tell them no,” he said. “It is of course not that I do not feel
terrible for the civilians that are suffering in Syria, but … for an American
young man in my position that would be foolish, and regarded as such by pretty
much everyone, including the opposition.
“I can either be in a position to deliver tens of thousands of dollars of
antibiotics for women and children, or I can be another young man with a gun.”
And then the young men with guns decided to take him prisoner and queue him up
as the next victim for their videotaped ritual executions. The former soldier
said he began working on humanitarian missions to the Middle East to better
understand his “role in the conflict in Iraq and its impact on the Middle East
in general from a personal perspective and from the perspective of the Arab
world.” He has that understanding now, but it’s probably nothing like the lesson
he expected to learn.
The official response to his plight has been more of the passive-aggressive
drivel we’ve come to expect. “This is again yet another just very clear example
of the brutality of this group, and why the president has articulated and is
moving out in a comprehensive way to degrade and destroy ISIL,” said Obama
counter-terrorism adviser Lisa Monaco. Yes, she made sure to work Obama’s
trademarked political catch-phrase “degrade and destroy” in there, but she
forgot to say “ultimately destroy.” I hope she doesn’t get in trouble for that.
“This is an unimaginably devastating situation for any parent to endure. My
prayers are with Peter’s parents at this terrible time … I ask for respect of
the Kassig family’s privacy as they seek to navigate this heartbreaking
situation,” said Senator Joe Donnelly (D-IN), who represents the Kassigs’ home
state. He makes it sound like the poor fellow contracted Ebola, rather than
being threatened with brutal execution by the military enemies of the United
States.
Actually, it would be more accurate to say that ISIS is making progress in its
plans to degrade and ultimately destroy Iraq, as they’ve made fresh territorial
gains despite weeks of aimless bombing – they’re “moving freely in Abu Ghraib,”
keeping Iraqi troops penned up in the notorious military base, which means they
can begin shelling Baghdad soon if they’re not dislodged. They’re still
beheading hostages left and right. They’ve made strides toward reconciliation
with their rivals in al-Qaeda, which the director of the FBI says should be able
to strike the United States “very very soon.” That’s why the Obama
Administration renamed them “the Khorasan Group,” in the hopes American voters
are too dumb to realize it’s the same people Obama boasted about routing during
his re-election campaign.
The only real objective of this non-war was to goose Barack Obama’s flagging
poll numbers. If ISIS murders another American hostage, or makes a strong play
to take Baghdad, not even that objective will be fulfilled.

Op-Ed: Islam is at War with the Oldest
Religions
Giulio Meotti/The writer, an Italian journalist with Il Foglio, writes a
twice-weekly…
Ancient communities will soon be gone as ISIS murders “infidels”./Published:
Monday, October 06, 2014/Arutz Sheva
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/Articles/Article.aspx/15758#.VDKw85stC70
It was 1929 when British archaeologist Leonard Woolley made ​​a sensational
discovery in Nineveh, Iraq’s province. He commanded an Arab worker to dig a pit
to test the archaeological layers of the biblical Ur of the Chaldeans, the
birthplace of Abraham. They found broken bricks and other items that indicated
an ancient human settlement.
At a depth of one meter, the worker reached what archaeologists call “virgin
clay”, the layer from which it follows that there is nothing more that is
interesting and signs of life end right there.
“Babylon will become a heap of ruins, haunted by jackals. She will be an object
of horror and contempt”.
Woolley told him to continue. After two and a half meters of further excavation,
the worker found fragments of pottery and other archaeological material.
Sir Woolley gasped: How you could interpret that split between two
civilizations, the clean land between two layers which clearly indicated two
different human presences, two different civilizations separated by a layer of
sandy soil and virgin clay?
Nineveh had been erased from the earth. The most magnificent capital of
Mesopotamian civilization, the “great whore” of the Bible, the land of
Hammurabi, Ashurbanipal, full of sculptures of terrifying winged genuses,
man-hawks, demons, Pazuzu and bulls with wings, was the first to disappear,
reduced to rubble by the Babylonians and Persians, with lynx and jackals howling
in the ruins of palaces and temples, ruins still largely submerged by the hills
of dirt accumulated over the millennia. Even a dam on the Euphrates, still in
business, was built with bricks stamped with the seal of Nebuchadnezzar.
In Nineveh today the grass grows once more. There where the most ancient cults
of the earth sill mingle, Islam is waging war against the world’s oldest
religions.
As Louis Sako, head of Iraq’s largest Catholic congregation, said: “This has
never happened in the Christian and Islamic history”.
Priests and astrologers have been present in Mesopotamia since the dawn of
civilization. It has been proven that our civilization was born in the land of
the two rivers, in Mesopotamia. Up to today, throughout the Fertile Crescent,
despite the many wars in the region, one could find communities that bore
witness to the extraordinary antiquity of the areas religious traditions.
Until the arrival of the Islamic State.
Like the Jews, who fled decades ago, Christians are now also all gone. On
Sunday, “for the first time in two thousand years the Christian communion was
not celebrated in Nineveh”, said the Anglican vicar of Baghdad, Canon Andrew
White. There remain only the homes of Christians marked with the “n” of Nasrani.
Nazarenes.
A year ago there were 60,000 Christians in Mosul. Today there is only a handful.
Yazidis of the Islamic State are killed in mass. The bodies of thirty Yazidis,
including five children, killed by the jihadists of the Islamic State, have just
been found in a mass grave, one of many fresh graves discovered in northern Iraq
near Zummar, in an area recaptured by the Kurdish Peshmerga militia .
The Yazidi Fraternal Organization has recorded the names of twelve thousand
Yazidi – five thousand women and seven thousand men – killed or kidnapped (in
the case of women) since August third, when the mountain of Sinjar fell into the
hands of Islamic State. Yazidis are one of the oldest communities linked to the
Zoroastrians, the ancestors of the great orchestra conductor Zubin Mehta, who
fled from Persia twelve centuries ago to preserve the sacred fire of Zoroaster
from the desecration of the Arab invaders.
Relatives of the Yazidi are Kakais, the Kurdish syncretic sect known for their
mustache rituals. The Islamic State considers them to be “blasphemous”, because
the Qur’an prescribes a short mustache. Kakais are a heterodox sect linked to
Shiite Islam. The Islamic State kills them every time they are caught.
Among the Sunni jihadists fighting in Syria, supporters of Bashar el Assad,
Alawites, are called “Majous”. Like in the Gospels.
The Mandaeans, the last Gnostics on earth, are also disappearing in Iraq. Every
Sunday they gather on the banks of the Tigris to celebrate immersion in the
waters as did John the Baptist. Ninety percent of the Mandaeans have fled Iraq,
threatened with death by Islamists. The first Mandaean tribes migrated from the
Holy Land to the banks of the lower Euphrates during the first and second
century AD, over two thousand years ago.
The Mandaeans speak a dialect similar to Aramaic of the Babylonian Talmud. They
are the cousins ​​of the people who produced the Nag Hammadi codices (such as
the Gospel of Thomas)
The Mandaeans are pacifists, their religion prevents them from carrying weapons.
They have fallen victim to lawlessness, kidnappings, rapes, murders and forced
conversions at the hands of Islamic fundamentalists.
The Shabak syncretic cult is another of the main objectives for terrorist
movements, especially the Islamic State. According to a report published by the
Ministry of Human Rights in Iraq, 1,200 Shabaks have been killed and six
thousand displaced. The position of the Shabak in support of the Anglo-American
war in Iraq in 2003 and their vote for the Iraqi constitution has made them
enemies of terrorists.
Also threatened by the Islamic State are Zoroastrian Turkmen. Finally there are
the Sabians, the children of the South Arabian civilization and the Queen of
Sheba, the one who appears in the Bible and in the Qur’an. As reported by Uday
Asa’ad Khamas, spokesman for the Iraqi Sabeans, in ten years ten thousand of the
forty thousand Sabians have left. In Baghdad there is only one religious Sabean.
They are mentioned in both the Qur’an and the Book of Job.
Targeted by the Islamic State are also the last people who speak Aramaic. As in
the Syrian town of Maalula, long besieged by the Syrian Islamists and then freed
by the army of Bashar el Assad. The Islamists say they want to transform Aramaic
into a “dead language.”
This is a war not only against humanity, but against civilization. It seems
almost a confirmation of the biblical prophecy: “Babylon will become a heap of
ruins, haunted by jackals. She will be an object of horror and contempt”.
What remains of the most gorgeous and sinful capital of the ancient world today
bears the appearance of death. There is a silence, in which one can still hear
echoing the curse of Jeremiah.

The US and its allies have little choice but try to weaken
ISIS, though their strategy is unclear as they have no idea who will take IS
positions both in Iraq and Syria after the goal is achieved, counter-terrorism
expert and advisor Walid Phares told RT.
RT: This weekend ISIS issued a video of another beheading, this time British
hostage Henning. What’s the purpose of these videos showing the violent killing
of innocent people?
Walid Phares: ISIS is a terrorist organization and at the same time they want to
send more messages to the international community to intimidate the leaders of
the international community because they know that a wide coalition is forming
against them, many members of this coalition are from the West, but you also
have forces on the ground against them. So one of the weapons that ISIS is using
is propaganda, is sending these awful images and videos of beheading of
individual innocent people so that they hope the public will rise against
intervention in Syria and Iraq.
RT: The US Vice President Joe Biden made a statement blaming US allies in the
Middle East for funding and supporting ISIS. Why has Biden come out with this
allegation only now?
WP: Actually, this is only an allegation as you said, but it has to have an
explanation. It is not that US allies or other than allies have actually created
ISIS. What they have done is to fund individuals or networks of jihadists when
these jihadists were rising in Syria against the Assad regime, and those allies
have sent those weapons to rebels thinking that the rebels are going to be
establishing a new democratic Syria. But many of these rebels were actually
jihadists. Later on, these rebels-jihadists joined Al-Nusra, which was Al-Qaeda,
and after that they joined from Al-Nusra ISIS. So there is some sort of
responsibility that all countries involved in funding or sending support to
jihadists will have to bear. But that’s a lesson for the future because now the
US and its allies are gathering a very large coalition that includes countries
that in the past may have either sent some sort of aid or allowed those
jihadists to cross their territories, and namely Qatar and Turkey, but now Qatar
and Turkey are joining the coalition.
RT: How effective could a US campaign be against ISIS? Could the coalition be
discouraged by the threats and video issued by IS?
WP: Certainly, ISIS and jihadists are trying to push Western powers away by
perpetrating these beheadings in public or at least airing these videos of this
act of barbarism. At the same time the US and its allies have little choice but
try to weaken ISIS. However, in the cycle of escalation it is going to be
dependent on who is going to take the initiative on the ground, meaning from the
air you can pound them, you can bomb them for a long period of time, you could
take out the heavy equipment and material, but you cannot occupy, you cannot
take over the positions of ISIS. So the challenge now is going to be both in
Iraq and in Syria. If ISIS is weakened despite its propaganda – at one point it
will be weakened - who is going on the ground to move forward and occupy their
position? It might be moderate Syrian opposition who is so strong, or the Assad
regime forces in Syria. And in Iraq, is it going to be the Iraqi army, which has
a problem in the Sunni areas? Or it is going to be the Kurds who can defend
their areas but cannot go into the Sunni areas? Most of the campaign against
ISIS is not clear yet at this point of time.
RT: The Vice President also said Syria has no moderate opposition, yet the White
House intends to arm rebel groups. Which ones, in that case?
WP: What the Vice President may be saying, and I’m not defending what he is
saying, that so far Syrian opposition, most of its armed forces cannot be coined
as the moderates we want to see. That’s what he is trying to say, while the
policy in the White House is “We will be looking to find those moderates to
organize them, to arm and train them and place them back in the battlefield.”
Again, from both the Vice President and the President you would feel that this
partner that we want to see in Syria taking action against ISIS is not ready
yet. Should it be present or present in the future, it’s to be seen.
RT: Barack Obama has admitted that the intelligence community failed to identify
the threat posed by Islamic State early enough. How did that happen?
WP: There are many members in Congress who disagree with the President’s
statements, and we have seen many voices in Washington saying that Congress
received copies of the intelligence assessment e last year and at least early
2014. And in those assessments obviously the so-called ISIS, in Arabic Daesh, or
IS now, has been described as a “mounting threat”. The problem, in my view, has
not been the intelligence community assessment. Any intelligence agency in the
world, including in the Arab world, probably in Russia as well and elsewhere,
they knew that ISIS was around. The problem has been at the political level.
It’s not knowing what it is; it’s what to do about it. The lack of action
against ISIS in the early part of the 2014 or late part of 2013 is responsible
for the fact that ISIS overnight in June and in July took over large parts of
Iraq and significant parts of Syria.
RT: Turkey and the Gulf States are part of the anti-Islamic State coalition. Can
we be sure they won't try to hijack the campaign to get rid of Assad?
WP: That’s a very good question. Let’s break it down into multiple parts. The
Saudi main concern now is to contain ISIS. Qatar, which has been seen as a
dynamic actor in support of the Islamists and jihadists in Syria, Iraq and North
Africa, is trying to change its posture. The main role is really for Turkey. The
AKP government in the past has also allowed some of these jihadists to move to
Syria, so now they have to change their policy significantly. But yes, probably
these countries would like to see an element in Syria that could be allied to
them; probably they would like to see the FSA take over. So most likely they are
trying to negotiate and position themselves in this campaign against ISIS as a
way to weaken Assad.
But the US knows that, and Washington would like now to focus only on ISIS
because the administration still believes that a political solution is the right
way to go for Syria, meaning once ISIS is taken out, then the Syrian opposition
and the Assad regime in Geneva will have to find the solution. But again, this
is wishful thinking, these are political decisions. What will happen in reality
on the ground? If ISIS is weakened, you are going to have a very ferocious race
between the Syrian opposition and the Assad regime. We don’t know who will be
the winner.
The statements, views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of
the author and do not necessarily represent those of RT.

Turkey swapped 180 IS militants for 49 hostages
Al-Monitor: The Pulse of the Middle East
http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/security/2014/10/turkey-iraq-syria-isis-hostages.html?utm_source=Al-Monitor+Newsletter+%5BEnglish%5D&utm_campaign=a8f8f63725-October_3_2014&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_28264b27a0-a8f8f63725-93111661
Details of the exchange made with the Islamic State (IS) to release 49 Turkish
hostages are becoming clearer after President Recep Tayyip Erdogan signaled at
an exchange by saying, “So what if there was an exchange?”
In return for the consulate personnel, 180 militants were handed over to IS,
including some senior officials of the organization: 180 IS personnel were first
assembled at Van and then delivered to IS in batches.
This is the background of the release of the 49 hostages:
The process began with the US air attacks against IS. The United States asked
Turkey not to release IS militants undergoing medical treatment in Turkey and
warned Turkey not to free IS people apprehended in Turkey. IS, for its part,
pressed the government to release the detained IS personnel and those undergoing
treatment.
The AKP government, squeezed by the United States and IS, then developed an
exchange formula to hand over IS militants in Turkey in return for hostages. It
was claimed that with this diplomatic formula Turkey ensured the release of the
hostages while getting rid of the IS people on its territory. Turkish security
units were not directly engaged in an operation during the release of the
hostages.
Notables of pro-US Iraqi tribes played an important role in the exchange
process. After the agreement was reached, IS brought the hostages to the border
and informed the Turkish National Intelligence Organization (MIT). There,
Turkish security units took over the hostages. The release of IS militants
followed the release of Turkish hostages and took about one week. IS militants
undergoing medical treatment and those detained in prisons were brought forth
and held in Van before being delivered to IS in batches. It is not yet known
whether the IS militants who attacked police at Nigde were among those handed
over. Reports say they were included in the initial list of IS militants to be
released, but were taken off the list after reactions.
No weapons were given or money paid for the hostages. But in the very first days
of the crisis, a certain amount of money was paid to IS officials. Release of
hostages also revealed three power centers involved in the issue. After the
release of hostages, the presidency, the prime ministry and MIT mobilized their
supporters in the media to play up and glorify their roles. This was seen as the
first secret power struggle in Ankara since Erdogan became president. Ankara
political circles say this was the way MIT chief Hakan Fidan conveyed a message
of “I count also.”

Compared to Iran, ISIS is a ‘Junior Varsity’ Team
October 5, 2014
Eytan Sosnovich/The Algemeiner
http://www.algemeiner.com/2014/10/05/compared-to-iran-isis-is-a-junior-varsity-team/
Last month, in a primetime national address, President Obama laid out his
four-pronged strategy to “degrade and ultimately destroy ISIS.” The U.S.
military has already begun to carry out the President’s directive; airstrikes
against ISIS positions in Iraq have increased and we can likely expect a
prolonged campaign against ISIS strongholds in Syria in the very near future.
While the efficacy of the President’s approach – which is based on never
involving American combat troops – is questionable, his objective – the
destruction of ISIS – is no doubt a reasonable goal. Not only does ISIS pose a
clear threat to the United States and its allies, it is also by any measure a
morally reprehensible organization, seemingly committed to violating any and all
international standards of human rights.
But there is an equally grotesque actor in the Middle East, one who is also
guilty of deplorable human rights abuses. This entity, like ISIS, treats women
and minorities like second class citizens; like ISIS, it performs grotesque
public executions of those guilty of committing the “perverse sin” of being gay;
like ISIS it attacks and jails Western journalists and human rights defenders;
and like ISIS, it poses a clear and direct threat to the United States and its
allies. This actor is of course the Islamic Republic of Iran. And while
President Obama and his European counterparts are committed to eradicating ISIS,
they are seemingly equally committed to allowing the Iranians to attain nuclear
capability.
Despite the best efforts of the nations of the P5+1, Iran is – according to a
report published earlier this month by the International Atomic Energy Agency –
still actively producing reactor grade uranium. The report also asserts that the
Iranians have blocked IAEA access to the site at Parchin, the facility that
according to Israeli intelligence is being used to conduct nuclear detonation
research. And perhaps most concerning, Iran continues to develop advanced
ballistic missiles capable of striking Israel and other U.S. allies.
ISIS is more than just a convenient distraction for Iran; it also provides the
Iranians with geopolitical leverage. Iran is in the unique position of serving
as a viable regional counter to ISIS, which could swell Iran’s influence in the
region, especially among Shiites. ISIS also functions as a bargaining chip in
future P5+1 negotiations that are scheduled to conclude in November. And if the
United States and its European allies remain bogged down in a long engagement
with ISIS, it is unlikely the U.S. would opt to also directly engage Iran
militarily should a deal fail to be reached. It should then come as no surprise
that Iranian negotiator Majid Takht-Ravanchi said just a few weeks ago that Iran
would not sign a deal “at any price.” With everything else happening in the
region, relaxed sanctions, and the ability as evidenced by the latest IAEA
report to continue work on its nuclear program, why should they?
With the UN General Assembly wrapped up, it is important that the United States
and its allies keep the eye on the ball. Yes, ISIS is a despicable organization
that should be wiped out. But ISIS compared to Iran is, as the President once
said, “junior varsity.”

Trojan horse: ISIS militants come to
Europe disguised as refugees, US intel sources claim
Published time: October 06, 2014 /RT
http://rt.com/news/193400-isis-militants-pose-refugees/
Islamic State militants are planning to insert operatives into Western Europe
disguised as refugees, claim US intelligence sources, who unencrypted locked
communications of the caliphate’s leadership.
The militant organization is afraid of using aircraft due to strict security
rules, so they use land as an alternative, the US sources told Bild Am Sonntag,
a German national Sunday newspaper.
Disguised as refugees from Syria, Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS) operatives
will cross the border to Turkey. Then, using fake passports, they will travel
further to European countries to conduct attacks.
“In view of the chaotic conditions on the Syria-Turkey border, it is nearly
impossible to catch ISIS-terrorists in the wave of refugees,” wrote Bild Am
Sonntag.
Because hundreds of refugees cross the Syrian-Turkish border every day, the
jihadists have a good chance of remaining unnoticed in the crowds.
Turkey is also used by jihadists who want to join the IS in Syria, as they don’t
need a visa to get there. They go on ‘vacations’ as tourists and upon arrival
have almost no trouble finding a way to cross the border.
According to one of Iraq’s foremost security experts with unique access to
intelligence, at least 100,000 jihadists were fighting in the ranks of the IS in
August.
There are some 15,000 foreign fighters from the IS in Syria alone, including
2,000 Westerners, a US intelligence official told AFP in September.
Germany continues to be one of the main goals of IS
An official from the German Interior Ministry told the paper that the country is
in the “focus of jihadist terrorism,” but there is no indication at this time of
any concrete attacks.
German security says that about 450 extremist German Muslims traveled in the
direction of Syria.
But it is still nearly impossible to track their country’s radicals when they
are heading from Germany to Syria, as they don’t need a visa to travel to
Turkey, a German official told the Jerusalem Post.
About 150 Islamic fighters have returned from Syria to Germany.
Last week it was revealed that German authorities encouraged some jihadists to
leave the country. Ludwig Schierghofer, the chief officer in charge of
counterterrorism at Bavaria’s LKA investigative police department, told public
broadcaster Westdeutscher Rundfunk that such measure is aimed at “protecting our
[German] population.”
The issue was “to get people out of the country” if there was evidence that “the
danger existed that they might commit attacks.”
“If somebody had become radicalized and wanted to leave the country, then we
tried to either let him depart, or even sought to accelerate their departure
using legal means,” Schierghofer said.
The measure was introduced in Bavaria, southeastern Germany, in 2009, but then
abandoned in 2014 after the authorities understood that they were actually
helping IS militants.
IS continues Middle East advance despite US strikes
US-led airstrikes on the Islamic State are failing to stop the advance of the
jihadists.
The militants are reportedly approaching the outskirts of the city of Kobani, a
town in the Aleppo Governorate in northern Syria near the Turkish border.
The situation in the town prompted some 186,000 Kurds to flee the area across
the border into Turkey, and groups of Kurdish volunteers wishing to cross into
Syria to defend the town against the IS on Saturday clashed with tear gas-firing
Turkish security forces refusing to let them pass.
Around 100,000 people remain in Kobani amid the violence.
Enemy tactics: Kurdish female suicide bomber ‘attacks ISIS jihadists’ in Kobani
“Those who stay in the area are living in very poor conditions, there is drastic
shortage of food,” Muhammad, a Kobani resident, told RT.
According to Osman, a Turkey-Syria border resident, Turkish security forces
prevent them from helping the Kurds, but the residents of Kobani will continue
to assist them where they can.
“We are eyewitnesses of the event. It seems that the whole world has abandoned
Kobani,” he told RT. “If the Kurdish forces don’t get the supplies they need
there will be a mass slaughter among the Kurdish population.”
He added that so far the local residents “haven’t seen any results of US strikes
against the Islamic State.”By mistake? US-led jets bomb grain silos in Syria, ‘civilians killed’

International aid for Syria has been too little, too late
Fayez Sara /Asharq Al Awsat
Monday, 6 Oct, 2014
The ongoing strikes by the international coalition against the Islamic State of
Iraq and Syria (ISIS) make this an opportune moment to critically assess the
international assistance given to the Syrian people since the start of their
revolution against President Bashar Al-Assad’s murderous regime. It must also be
acknowledged that the current strikes do not really count as “direct assistance”
to the Syrian people—even if the results of the strikes could work in their
favor—because they specifically aim to destroy ISIS and other groups like it,
not to support the Syrian people in their fight against the Assad regime.
Leaving aside the current strikes, we can see that all the international
assistance offered to the Syrian people over the last few years falls into one
of three categories: political, military and humanitarian. Each of these led to
different results, reflected different parts of the reality in Syria, and
affected the development of the conflict throughout the recent period.
Since the very beginning of the revolution in Syria, it was obvious the Syrian
people needed outside help, both from within the region and beyond. The reason
for this was that the Syrian people, with their peaceful, civil calls for
freedom, were up against one of the world’s worst dictatorial regimes,
ever-ready to unleash the forces of terrorism and oppression upon its own
people. It was thus clear the Syrian people could not resist this regime, which
would likely pulverize them into submission as it did in the 1980s in Hama and
elsewhere, and with the Palestinians and the Lebanese during the civil war in
Lebanon.
The first of the three forms of support, the international political support for
the Syrian people, came very late. This was due to either or both of two
reasons: first, no one could quite believe that the Syrian people had revolted
against this regime that everyone had deemed unshakeable; second, many in the
region were fearful of retaliatory attacks against them by the Assad regime if
they supported the Syrian people’s revolution. And so in this way, a vague,
wary, uneasy and somewhat embarrassed trickle of international support began to
emerge. Its tentative nature was one of the factors that allowed the Syrian
regime to unleash an armed onslaught on its own people, which then led to the
revolution to arm itself, transitioning from a peaceful to an armed stage, then
passing into the next stage which saw the emergence of violent, extremist groups
on the scene, along with a quickly rising death toll, and then to its third and
current stage with the international action.
Military support for the conflict was a little different, however. After the
appearance of the first armed groups towards end of 2011, it was clear that
foreign players had now become involved. A number of countries offered support
to these groups with help from their own security services, as well as through
politically motivated “NGOs” and Syrians living abroad. But their main form of
support was through supplying arms, ammunition and cash to these groups. Indeed
some of this support sought to establish particular armed groups on the ground,
not just aid existing ones. All of this was politically motivated of course, and
all of it significantly altered the contours of the Syrian conflict thereafter.
This military support for Syrian armed groups did not differ that much from the
international political support offered to the Syrian people. It was, once
again, tentative in nature, and offered in return for the establishment of
certain political ends compatible with the aims of the benefactors. Moreover,
the help offered to these Syrian groups was limited and eventually helped the
Islamist strand become entrenched within them. With more and more Islamist
fighters joining their ranks, this led to tension, infighting and splits, all of
which weakened Syria’s armed revolutionary groups in their fight against Assad.
But there have also been suspicion regarding the international humanitarian
assistance, the third form of support offered to the Syrian people since the
start of their revolution. There are four main benefactors of humanitarian aid
to the Syrian people: countries, international aid organizations, NGOs and civil
society organizations, and the Syrian diaspora (which includes a number of
wealthy expats). This humanitarian support varied, from food and medical
supplies to a number of small-scale development projects. Of course, this aid
was much less than was needed; it was also poorly organized and irregular—and,
once again, often politically motivated. More important than this, however, is
the way some of the countries that have been hosting Syrian refugees, such as
Jordan, have actually been preventing some of the aid meant for these refugees
from reaching them. In some cases the aid was doled out to local organizations
instead, or limited to particular groups, as happens with the aid that is
distributed via the Assad regime, which blocks aid to its opponents or areas
where they are numerous, such as the Ghouta or southern areas of Damascus,
redirecting it to its own pockets of support. Such a tactic has also been used
by some of the armed groups holding areas of the country outside government
control.
There have been many complicated problems associated with the humanitarian aid
being offered to the Syrian people over the last few years. Some of these
problems are “close to critical,” such as that of the size of UN aid. Even
though this has clearly been inadequate in alleviating the sufferings of the
Syrian people, the UN is now saying it will be slashing this aid by around 40
percent due to the lack of international donors. Some observers even predict the
aid will stop entirely in the course of 2015.
Summing up the issue of international support to the Syrian people, we can say
that the political support has been severely lacking in helping to end the
conflict or at the very least sway it in favor of the Syrian people, which has
resulted in the war dragging on and on and causing more suffering for Syrians.
International military support has not fared much better, leading to the
weakening and fragmentation of armed Syrian groups, who are now under intense
pressure to take particular political directions. The humanitarian aid,
moreover, is not even able to fulfil the minimum requirements of the people, and
it is even in danger of being reduced or cut off.
It is now essential the international support being offered to the Syrian people
is strengthened, in order to end the conflict or at the very least to stop it
from spiraling out of control

Biden echoes Iran’s words on ISIS
Abdulrahman al-Rashed /Al Arabiya
Monday, 6 October 2014
U.S. Vice President Joe Biden is a veteran politician who’s more experienced in
foreign relations than many other senior politicians at the White House. As a
former member of the foreign relations committee, the NATO observer group, and
other Washington governmental institutions, Biden is even more experienced in
geopolitics than President Barack Obama.
So, Biden’s recent statements implying that Turkey, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the
United Arab Emirates are behind the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS)
terrorist group angered everyone.
Apart from the fact that this is an irresponsible statement, it may also abort
the efforts of the anti-ISIS coalition in the fight against the group. Biden’s
statement also evades responsibility. Gulf countries, France and Britain have
over a year ago warned of leaving conflict-ridden Syria to the hands of
terrorist organizations but the White House insisted on refusing intervention in
all its forms and prohibited the supplying of the Free Syrian Army with advanced
weaponry.
This led to the prolonging of the war and to the Syrian and Iranian regimes’
rejection of the Geneva I conference’s solution of an interim government without
Bashar al-Assad. The decision of the U.S. not to intervene in Syria led to the
participation of extremist groups, such as ISIS, in the Syrian civil war –
especially after Assad’s crimes escalated violence with chemical weapons and
barrel bombs. Washington’s negative stance thus weakened the moderate Syrian
opposition, like the Free Syrian Army, and encouraged terrorist groups to enter
the battlefield.
No direct support
Perhaps Turkey is to be blame for leaving its borders open for extremists
without discrimination, but I don’t believe it is directly supporting ISIS.
Saudi Arabia and the UAE, however, are two countries who worked on combatting
ISIS the most, at a time when Biden was sound asleep on his ostrich-feather
pillow leaving the organization to grow and ignoring all warnings from the
region.
“ISIS primarily targets Arab Sunni regimes while Shiite Iran has been a safe
haven for some al-Qaeda leaders”
Accusing countries - just because they are Sunni - of backing Sunni extremist
ISIS implies ignorance in the history of the war on terrorism in the region.
ISIS is just a new banner for the old-order al-Qaeda and they both have the same
aims. When simplifying disputes in the Middle East, some analysts categorize
disputes as sectarian or ethnic - considering they are reason enough to fight.
Such a simplification can mislead foreign analysts. Wars happen among followers
of religions but most of them happen between people of one sect - as in between
Sunnis and Sunnis, Shiites and Shiites, Christians and Christians and Kurds and
Kurds.
The situation is not different when dealing with al-Qaeda-style organizations
and its branches like ISIS. ISIS is a Sunni extremist organization which has
killed more Sunnis than Shiites and Yazidis. For instance, it killed 500 of the
Sunni al-Sheitaat tribe to punish them for not cooperating.
ISIS primarily targets Arab Sunni regimes while Shiite Iran has been a safe
haven for some al-Qaeda leaders - particularly those who fled from Afghanistan
and Pakistan - for around one-and-a-half decades.
Wrong understanding
Therefore, summarizing disputes in a sectarian or ethnic context may lead to a
wrong understanding of the situation. Iran and the Assad regime are the major
supporters of Sunni political organizations and of Sunni armed extremist
organizations like Hamas, the Muslim Brotherhood, Fatah al-Islam and others.
Biden must accept blame instead of blaming others. He’s concerned with Iraqi
affairs and has lived through the policies of former Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri
al-Maliki, who’s behind the emergence of the ISIS in Iraq’s western al-Anbar
province.
Thousands of Iraqi youths joined ISIS as a result of the hostility and
elimination publicly practiced against them. Biden and the rest of Washington
were quite late in realizing Maliki’s lies and the weakness of his army.
Instead of blaming Maliki, Assad and the Iranian government - the tripartite who
caused chaos and revived the curse of extremism in the entire region - Biden
blamed the countries who’ve actually fought al-Qaeda nonstop.
Instead of getting direct answers to his suspicions from the countries concerned
(i.e. Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the UAE), Biden chose to echo the
statements of Iran and Assad’s regime.

An Iranian nuke deal is more political
than technicalCamelia Entekhabi-Fard /A Arabiya
Monday, 6 October 2014
For the second time during his 13 months in office, Iranian President Hassan
Rowhani addressed the United Nations General Assembly at the U.N.’s 69th annual
session in New York two weeks ago. He seized the opportunity to reiterate his
determination to make progress in Iran’s nuclear talks and raised the Islamic
Republic’s point of view in a very straightforward and serious manner.
The nuclear talks resumed on Sep. 18 on the sidelines of the General Assembly,
with Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif acting as Iran’s chief negotiator.
This year’s round of talks reached the most critical stage of negotiation since
last year, as both Iran’s president and the U.S. spoke of a diplomatic solution
as the preferred method of solving this almost-a-decade-long issue over the
Islamic Republic’s controversial nuclear program.
The talks ended on Sep. 26 after an intense week of negotiating with almost no
details given to the media. At a press conference in New York, Rowhani said:
“Today there is a serious intent which is quite evident to perceive even through
the words. Serious will does exist (in reference to the nuclear talks).”
I must state at no time since Rowhani took office have I heard such a serious
tone in the last few days in New York about the level of engagement and will to
progress in the talks, no matter if the media haven’t been updated or briefed.
Serious tone
Iran has less than eight weeks to reach a comprehensive agreement with world
powers and settle the negotiations. Iran’s other option is to walk away from the
talks completely, which is very unlikely.
“For Iran, limiting their nuclear program is tantamount to limiting the
revolution’s value. Taking this major step requires courage on the Islamic
Republic’s part”
Camelia Entekhabi-Fard
Disputes over Iran’s controversial nuclear program have put enormous pressure on
Iran’s economy and tarnished its international prestige simply because it could
not prove the program is peaceful.
The sanctions have pushed Iran to act more aggressively on the world stage - and
have further empowered the hardliners.
Solving the nuclear file is a major national security concern for Rowhani, who
took on his government’s challenge to come to New York to show support for
Iran’s delegation in the talks, despite opposition from hardliners. Rowhani also
took the opportunity to meet with other leaders and elaborate Iran’s view of the
crisis engulfing the region.
At his speech to the U.N. Security Council on Sep. 24, Obama called on Iran to
“not let the opportunity pass” for a breakthrough in the nuclear talks.
It appears the two former foes fully appreciate the importance of this
opportunity but have not seized it, because they each want to have the upper
hand in this agreement. Clearly, both Iran and the United States wish to reach a
comprehensive deal before the interim deadline expires on Nov. 24 - but neither
wants to sell themselves easy after decades of animosity and disputes.
Unique
Rowhani repeated the same message Obama delivered to the Security Council,
calling the nuclear agreement with Iran a “unique opportunity” before them to
resolve the dispute and an historical event which “shouldn’t be missed.”
Rowhani also noted he was engaging in indirect talks with Obama. The two
presidents spoke on the phone last year about many issues, but agreed to solve
the nuclear matter before dealing with other concerns, Rowhani said at a talk
with a group of intellectuals and policy makers at the New America Foundation
think-tank on Sept 24.
Nothing has been arranged between the two presidents this year because the
nuclear file has not yet been settled and the regional crisis over the
deteriorating situation in Iraq and Syria and the Islamic State of Iraq and
Syria (ISIS) isn’t being handled in the manner Iran believes it ought to be.
Iran has not been invited to join the U.S.-formed coalition against ISIS and
this disappointment has been reflected in the behavior and attitude of Tehran's
politicians.
Opposition
At the same New America Foundation talk, Rowhani expressed his opposition to the
direct involvement of foreign countries in the regional confrontation with ISIS.
“The Islamic Republic of Iran is the only regional country which can help Iraq
and has the aim, desire and the equipment to do it.” Rowhani said to Fareed
Zakaria, the moderator of the New America Foundation program.
The role Iran wants to play in the region is much greater than what the U.S.
suggested in the U.N. Security Council’s emergency meeting on Sep. 19 on ISIS
and the crisis in Iraq.
“There is a role for nearly every country in the world to play, including Iran,”
said Secretary of State John Kerry at the meeting.
But Iran is not “every country” in the world. Iraq shares some of its longest
borders with Iran and Syria and hasn’t been included to the regional coalition.
“I believe if countries claiming leadership of the coalition are doing so to
continue their hegemony in the region, they would be making a strategic
mistake,” Rowhani said at the New America Foundation talk.
It’s clear Iran needs to make the nuclear deal first, and then work on other
matters with the U.S., including security cooperation and combating terrorism in
Iraq.
It also seems Iran and the United States are eager to reach a comprehensive deal
before Nov. 24, regardless of the crisis in Iraq and Syria.
Touching base
A Senior State Department official sent this email to journalists in New York
covering the nuclear talks: “We thought it was time to touch base at the foreign
minister level, trilaterally, as another step in the process. This will be a
good opportunity to take stock of the work that has been done this week and
discuss the path forward.”
Hearing mixed messages after weeks of intense talks and a looming deadline gives
observers this sense where brinkmanship makes the both sides in the talks hold
themselves together in a firm resolve to reach an agreement.
The U.S. wants Iran to act as a responsible member of the international
community and commit itself not only to limiting its nuclear program, but also
changing its regional behavior.
For Iran, limiting their nuclear program is tantamount to limiting the
revolution’s value. Taking this major step requires courage on the Islamic
Republic’s part, as well as the U.S.’s recognition of Iran as a regional power.
Perhaps now the obstacles to reaching a comprehensive nuclear agreement are more
political than technical.
A senior U.S. official briefed a small group of journalists on Sep. 26 about the
nuclear talks. “The gaps are still serious,” the official said, on the condition
of anonymity. “We will continue the very hard work over the next weeks. There is
still adequate time to work through these issues and arrive at a comprehensive
agreement by the November deadline, some eight weeks away.”
According to Iran’s Deputy Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, Iran and the P5+1
(five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council plus Germany) will resume
the nuclear talks this week in an EU country. If the gaps are narrowed by then,
a ministerial-level meeting between the powers is expected to take place
sometime in November before the interim agreement expires on Nov. 24, 2014.